Welcome to our article on setting yourself up for success.
There are far too many people who are stressed out, don’t get enough sleep and are not eating healthy foods. Many of them are in jobs that they really don’t want to be in and have little (or no) motivation.
Many of their problems actually start from the minute that they wake up.
Do you start your day like this ? 
- The alarm goes off
- You hit the snooze button
- The alarm goes off
- You hit the snooze button (again)
- The alarm goes off
- You hit the snooze button (for a third time !!)
This can be repeated any number of times. Eventually the pleasure/pain principle kicks in and maybe you associate more pain with staying in bed (i.e. you’d be late for work and get into trouble) than the ‘pleasure’ you are getting from being ‘all snuggled up’.
Let’s look at what happens when you do eventually realize that it’s time to get up………
If you’re really late :
- You rush around your apartment trying to get ready as quickly as possible
- Your mind going at 100 miles per hour
- You build up stress levels which, in less than 20 minutes, is going to completely undo all of the good work that the previous 8 hours sleep gave you.
However, let’s assume that you are not actually late for work :
- You slump out of bed
- Then shuffle to the bathroom and look at your ‘death-like’ features in the mirror
- Then maybe you shuffle off to the kitchen
- Once in the kitchen you start making a ‘healthy’ cup of coffee and perhaps grab something equally ‘healthy’ from the cupboard (maybe some sugary cereal that has a 4-year shelf life ?)
- Then you might switch on the morning news which is full of negativity that seeps into your subconscious mind as ‘the world we live in’ (where everything is a disaster and goes wrong)
NOT A GREAT START TO THE DAY !!!!!
Setting Yourself Up For Success
In his highly successful program ‘Get the Edge’, Anthony Robbins talks about the ‘Hour of Power’. This is taking time out each morning in order to set yourself up for the rest of the day.
But I don’t have time to mess about in the morning, I’d be late for work !!
We’re not actually advocating completing Robbins’ morning ritual every day. In fact, we have a much shorter version of own, inspired by this video from Project Life Mastery :
My Morning Ritual – How To Be Productive, Happy & Healthy Everyday
We’ve tweaked it a bit and come up with the following ‘Morning Ritual For Success’.
DO THIS EVERY DAY (even if you have to wake up 20 minutes early) !!!
Freshen Up Your Body (2 minutes)
- Stretch – Your body needs it, it has been in all sorts of curled up positions during the night
- Breathe – Open the window and take in 10 slow deep breaths
- Water – Drink 1 large glass of lemon water (sip this slowly whilst you are doing the rest of the morning ritual)
Waking Up Your Mind (5 minutes)
Consider investing in some motivational cards. These are laminated cards with just a couple of sentences on. Read just one card per day and really consider what the card is saying to you.
If you can’t afford motivational cards, then keep an eye on our Pinterest Boards. We will be producing a lot of bite-sized motivational and thought-provoking ‘pins’ that will fit in well with this exercise.
Visualize on the one big thing you have to do that day. See yourself achieving a successful outcome with that task. Feel the joy that its achievement will bring to you.
Take out a journal and write a couple of sentences answering at least 3 of these empowering questions :
- What am I happy about in my life right now and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- What am I excited about in my life right now and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- What am I proud of in my life and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- What am I grateful for and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- What am I passionate about and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- What am I enjoying about my life at the moment and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- What am I committed to and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- Who do I love and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
- Who loves me and how does that make me FEEL ? (Feel the emotion of it)
You don’t have to come up with all the answers – sometimes it’s good to allow the questions to seep into your subconscious mind and then, when you least expect it, you will get an “a-ha moment”.
Also, by writing the answers down, you have a record that you can look back on what you’ve written at the end of each month. You’ll be amazed at the things you’ll come up with over that time… and how your thought process will change. The answers you give today will be totally different to the answers you’ll give in 6 months’ time.
Power up with a short motivational video (5 minutes)
We have several motivational videos on our YouTube channel, which we are adding to every week. Here is our Motivational Video Playlist.
Motion = Emotion (10 minutes)
Raising your motion, will raise your Emotion. This in turn will make you feel better. Feeling better will raise your vibration, and this will naturally attract better things into your life (the Law of Attraction).
Ideally you should exercise at this point. However as a minimum do one of the following :
- Power walk to the station
- Walk the dog
- Get the newspaper or milk from the local store
Do anything, just get your body moving !!!
There’s no way I’ve got time for this before going to work / getting the kids ready for school.
You could always get your children involved. Be creative.
Of course, you can continue to roll out of bed, feeling like death, and trudge you way through the first few hours of your life each day. It’s your choice…….
Final Thoughts : How much do you want success ? 
Ideally you would do a lot more than what we’ve proposed above. However, in less than 25 minutes (which EVERYONE can spare), you have set yourself up for an amazing day.
It REALLY makes a difference if you can pump yourself up physically and mentally first thing in the morning.
Even if you only did 50% of this…. taking just 10-15 minutes each day, you WILL be setting yourself up for a much better day.
An alternative is to try this when you are not working (at the weekend ?), when you haven’t got to rush around, getting ready for work.
Our mantra is “Do a little bit of something each day – just do something”. This serves two purposes :
- It doesn’t take up too much time – which usually gives people an ‘excuse’ not to do it.
- Doing a bit each day becomes a ritual (like brushing your teeth) and once you have a daily ‘ritual’ it’s not that difficult to scale it up and do a bit more of it each day.
We hope that you found this ‘Setting Yourself Up For Success’ article useful. Please share these ideas with friends, family and colleagues – using the social media buttons below. Even if this is not for you, then we’re confident that someone you know is looking for something like this to help them kick-start their day.
Image credits : Woman In Bed With Alarm Clock(photostock) / Blond Woman Sitting On Bed(marin) both at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
